Small Business Stimulus and Bank Assistance
Over the past few weeks, our Government have announced several initiatives to provide assistance to Australian businesses. We know some of our clients are feeling the full impact of the isolation measures, either through a massive negative impact on business, loss of employment or significant adjustment resulting from kids requiring home-schooling.
For details of the assistance being provided by the Federal Government, the Department of Treasury website is a good reference. This can be found on the Treasury website.
We have seen some terrific guidance coming from various accounting firms, so your tax agent or accountant would be a valuable starting point for a conversation. If you can’t make sense of all the information or where to turn, please make contact with us.
Bank assistance measures announced by the Government have been supported by Australian financial institutions. If you are unable to meet your loan obligations, it is worth making contact with your bank to establish what support they are offering through this period.
Sensible questions to ask would be:
- What support are they providing: is that a standard approach or consideration of each individual case?
- Will they allow for a deferral of payments (both principle and interest, or either)?
- What period will they allow for a deferral of payments?
- Will they capitalise unpaid interest through the deferral period? (this means to add the unpaid interest to the loan balance);
- What evidence do they require to support a hardship claim?
- What happens at the end of the deferral period?
Each bank has a slightly different approach, so it is worth asking questions about their assistance and then contact us for a further discussion.